Azerbaijan becomes member of Egmont Group

Financial Monitoring Service of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan became a member of Egmont Group, the Service said in a statement on Monday. The decision on admitting Azerbaijan as a full member of the Group was made at the 19th plenary session of the Group, held July 11-15.

The Service had sent an appeal to obtain the status of a member of the Group in 2009, and based on it, certain procedures started to be implemented. The meeting of the sub-working group, held in March 2011, noted the compliance of the Service's activities with the international standards, the requirements of national legislation and the system of combating money laundering and terrorist financing, as a result of which a positive feedback was made on admitting the Financial Monitoring Service. Russia and Ukraine provided support in the process of Azerbaijan's admission to membership.

The leadership of Egmont Group urged the Financial Monitoring Service to be representative of the working groups. The Egmont Group is an organization like Interpol in the field of financial relationships (the group has its own information center "Safety net" of Egmont"). About 60 member countries of this organization exchange information on suspicious financial transactions and methods of money laundering and jointly oppose their trans-boundary movements.
Since 2002, Azerbaijan has been a member of the Council of Europe Committee of Experts MONEYVAL, and since 2009 - the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).


/Trend/